Herbscaping with Parsley

Everyone is familiar with parsley as a cooking ingredient, but what you might not know is how useful it is as a design element in the garden.

When it comes to cooking, there are two main varieties of parsley and each has its own use. Curly-leaf parsley is mild in flavor and often used as a garnish for soups, salads, and other meals. Flat-leaf, or Italian, parsley is more flavorful and is often used as an active ingredient because it can maintain its flavors despite the cooking process.

This bright green herb is also an excellent source of Vitamins A, B, K and actually contains more Vitamin C than most citrus fruits! It boasts sufficient amounts of iron, calcium, potassium, copper, magnesium and iodine its benefits to your health are both diverse and innumerable. It benefits seemingly every part of your body, from strengthening bones to aiding digestion, acting as an anti-inflammatory to preventing against heart disease. I like to snip a bit to chew on because it also serves as a great breath freshener. Quite simply, we should all be eating more parsley.

And parsley is a great plant for herbscaping, too. Curly leaf is a bit hardier in the landscape, but both varieties work well as an edging plant for your garden or pathways. You can use one or both in a pattern, and they are a wonderful addition to a butterfly garden. Black swallowtail caterpillars are known to lay their small yellow eggs in the leaves of parsley and the larvae feed on the herb, making its popularity in butterfly gardens so sensible.

Wherever you use it, use it often and enjoy the flavors it adds to your kitchen and garden.

Pot up parsley in a large terra cotta container as a green accent for pathways, terraces and patios.

Parsley is an excellent plant for edging flower borders and raised beds.

Use parsley in plant combos as a green backdrop for colorful blooms or a neutral to bridge contrasting hues.

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